David Bowie's Earthling has a lot in common with Pop. Never heard Ray of Light. I think the Fat of the Land comparisons are a lil overblown

Ray of Light is for my money the only Madonna album i would ever admit to liking and in all honesty the only one i could sit through....it genuinely has some really good stuff on it

80% of the merit goes to William Orbit.

His production on that album is a work of genius, still sounds fantastic after 20 years. I'm not afraid to say I absolutely love it.

I would argue that Madonna found her true voice there. Too bad she let it go shortly afterwards.

Slightly unfair imo.

She released some incredible pop songs in the 80s. Crazy For You is still one of my favourites. Great notation and use of inversions etc. Plus, it's catchy as hell

I didn't mean to say that she was awful before, what I meant to say is that with Ray of Light she evolved from being just a popstar. She changed the "easy shallow girl" persona that people knew her for, her way of singing and made this fantastic, genre-pioneering album. It was her "Achtung Baby", in a way.

David Bowie's Earthling has a lot in common with Pop. Never heard Ray of Light. I think the Fat of the Land comparisons are a lil overblown

Ray of Light is for my money the only Madonna album i would ever admit to liking and in all honesty the only one i could sit through....it genuinely has some really good stuff on it

80% of the merit goes to William Orbit.

His production on that album is a work of genius, still sounds fantastic after 20 years. I'm not afraid to say I absolutely love it.

I would argue that Madonna found her true voice there. Too bad she let it go shortly afterwards.

Very much so.....

Ray of Light was a cover. If Madonna found her true voice on a cover song, that's not really saying much for her.

It is? Wikipedia claims she co-wrote the song, though it seems it was "based on" another song. I wouldn't call myself a fan, but it seems silly to dismiss her outright.

Someone posted the original version on here on another thread about Songs You Didn't Realize Were Covers or something similar. Believe it was Imaginary Friend that posted it. I didn't realize before then either. And I've basically dismissed Madonna most of my life but i do remember thinking that the Ray of Light album was a nice change-up for her when it was released.

If you really think that Pop was pandering for hits then you are missing the entire concept of the album. Them attempting to "fit into modern music trends" was done completely ironically.

+1 Plus in 1997 the subgenres of electronic music that inspired Pop (techno, trip hop, dub, etc) were still very much an european club culture thing, they had yet to become a worldwide phenomenon. It's not like U2 were following the footsteps of Corona or Haddaway.

It was Madonna's "Ray of Light" in 1998 that made club electronic music accessible to the masses

Yeah... U2 is a european band and was paying attention to the club culture and dance/electronica in the 90's a lot, and in fact were open about the influences they had at the time ...the "they were groundbreaking" pink shades of some folk need to come down. And real experimentators like Radiohead would laugh at "experimental" claims U2 gets for trying a new guitar effect or a different drum beat.

David Bowie's Earthling has a lot in common with Pop. Never heard Ray of Light. I think the Fat of the Land comparisons are a lil overblown

Ray of Light is for my money the only Madonna album i would ever admit to liking and in all honesty the only one i could sit through....it genuinely has some really good stuff on it

then i'm in! i'll check it out soon. my wife and i talk about how much we love Madonna regularly but yea i just hvae 2 of her best of. Immaculate Collection <i never got that play on immaculate conception until recently> and GHV2

If you really think that Pop was pandering for hits then you are missing the entire concept of the album. Them attempting to "fit into modern music trends" was done completely ironically.

+1 Plus in 1997 the subgenres of electronic music that inspired Pop (techno, trip hop, dub, etc) were still very much an european club culture thing, they had yet to become a worldwide phenomenon. It's not like U2 were following the footsteps of Corona or Haddaway.

It was Madonna's "Ray of Light" in 1998 that made club electronic music accessible to the masses

Yeah... U2 is a european band and was paying attention to the club culture and dance/electronica in the 90's a lot, and in fact were open about the influences they had at the time ...the "they were groundbreaking" pink shades of some folk need to come down. And real experimentators like Radiohead would laugh at "experimental" claims U2 gets for trying a new guitar effect or a different drum beat.

Understood, but consider that Radiohead was just entering its experimental/electronic phase when U2 was finishing theirs.

If you really think that Pop was pandering for hits then you are missing the entire concept of the album. Them attempting to "fit into modern music trends" was done completely ironically.

+1 Plus in 1997 the subgenres of electronic music that inspired Pop (techno, trip hop, dub, etc) were still very much an european club culture thing, they had yet to become a worldwide phenomenon. It's not like U2 were following the footsteps of Corona or Haddaway.

It was Madonna's "Ray of Light" in 1998 that made club electronic music accessible to the masses

Yeah... U2 is a european band and was paying attention to the club culture and dance/electronica in the 90's a lot, and in fact were open about the influences they had at the time ...the "they were groundbreaking" pink shades of some folk need to come down. And real experimentators like Radiohead would laugh at "experimental" claims U2 gets for trying a new guitar effect or a different drum beat.

Understood, but consider that Radiohead was just entering its experimental/electronic phase when U2 was finishing theirs.

Are u2 a european band? I didn't think the Irish considered themselves European since most English I know (my wife and her family included) don't and refer to europe as the continent and themselves as either English or the UK. Arguments for/against the EU aside.

If you really think that Pop was pandering for hits then you are missing the entire concept of the album. Them attempting to "fit into modern music trends" was done completely ironically.

+1 Plus in 1997 the subgenres of electronic music that inspired Pop (techno, trip hop, dub, etc) were still very much an european club culture thing, they had yet to become a worldwide phenomenon. It's not like U2 were following the footsteps of Corona or Haddaway.

It was Madonna's "Ray of Light" in 1998 that made club electronic music accessible to the masses

Yeah... U2 is a european band and was paying attention to the club culture and dance/electronica in the 90's a lot, and in fact were open about the influences they had at the time ...the "they were groundbreaking" pink shades of some folk need to come down. And real experimentators like Radiohead would laugh at "experimental" claims U2 gets for trying a new guitar effect or a different drum beat.

Understood, but consider that Radiohead was just entering its experimental/electronic phase when U2 was finishing theirs.

Are u2 a european band? I didn't think the Irish considered themselves European since most English I know (my wife and her family included) don't and refer to europe as the continent and themselves as either English or the UK. Arguments for/against the EU aside.

Well alls I can say is that they were embraced on the Continent during the '90s when I lived there.

If you really think that Pop was pandering for hits then you are missing the entire concept of the album. Them attempting to "fit into modern music trends" was done completely ironically.

+1 Plus in 1997 the subgenres of electronic music that inspired Pop (techno, trip hop, dub, etc) were still very much an european club culture thing, they had yet to become a worldwide phenomenon. It's not like U2 were following the footsteps of Corona or Haddaway.

It was Madonna's "Ray of Light" in 1998 that made club electronic music accessible to the masses

Yeah... U2 is a european band and was paying attention to the club culture and dance/electronica in the 90's a lot, and in fact were open about the influences they had at the time ...the "they were groundbreaking" pink shades of some folk need to come down. And real experimentators like Radiohead would laugh at "experimental" claims U2 gets for trying a new guitar effect or a different drum beat.

Understood, but consider that Radiohead was just entering its experimental/electronic phase when U2 was finishing theirs.

Are u2 a european band? I didn't think the Irish considered themselves European since most English I know (my wife and her family included) don't and refer to europe as the continent and themselves as either English or the UK. Arguments for/against the EU aside.

Well alls I can say is that they were embraced on the Continent during the '90s when I lived there.

i think the band embraced what they thought was the 'new sound' coming out of europe for AB which would explain why the continent embraced them, but then again i think most countries/regions of the world embrace u2 i.e. south america especially.

David Bowie's Earthling has a lot in common with Pop. Never heard Ray of Light. I think the Fat of the Land comparisons are a lil overblown

Ray of Light is for my money the only Madonna album i would ever admit to liking and in all honesty the only one i could sit through....it genuinely has some really good stuff on it

then i'm in! i'll check it out soon. my wife and i talk about how much we love Madonna regularly but yea i just hvae 2 of her best of. Immaculate Collection <i never got that play on immaculate conception until recently> and GHV2

Hope you enjoy it.

It has depth, it is rich and interesting sonically and it is a cohesive record that marks a departure for Madonna but for me showcases qualities i never thought she had.

Was America's 'rejection' of Pop largely down to it being a record so far removed from their mainstream music scene then?

I think context has everything to do with it, really. Acknowledging that people don't all follow the same trends, old fans by and large may not have wanted to see U2 dress as the Village People or "go techno", and younger folks didn't necessarily buy U2 adopting the trappings of youth culture. I liked quite a lot of it, but it's hard to deny it didn't catch fire like Zoo TV did. Even that move, as celebrated as it is now, wasn't without its detractors at the time.